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Creating Bass Lines by Rhayn Jooste
Creating Bass Lines by Rhayn Jooste… This series of articles is in response to a question I had on twitter that I was not able to formulate an answer too in 140 letters: “How do you create your bass lines?” So what I am going to do in the next couple of months is step through some examples from the band I am in and some made up examples to highlight the processes I go through to achieve the bass lines I want or need, This is a personal approach and I suggest you use it as a starting point to find the method that works best for you.
The Road Map.
First thing I will do before anything else is sit down with the idea or track and chart (by chart, I mean by ear and in my mind) the chord changes, nailing the root notes. I will work out the key and and its associated scales and just play through it a couple of times until I am familiar with the harmonic territory and the structure. Eventually playing through it with crotchet root notes or maybe whole notes, the idea is to nail the changes – dead, whilst building up a familiarity with the landscape.
Memorize the Changes: If you have to write the chords down, do; however I have found I remember the changes better if I have worked them all out by ear. They stay fixed in my mind a lot firmer due to the amount of times I have had to listen to the track whilst working them out.
The Rhythm Section.
Working in close harmony with the drums and the drummer is essential. So next step for me is to start marking the main beats of the bass drum. Again due to repetition I have already subconsciously started to do this in the step above. Why? Well if you are playing whole notes on beat 1, you generally tend to listen closer to what happens around you after that, or at least you should be. My ideas all stem from listening in to the drum part closely during this phase. After that I start to try them out, to see what fits and what does not. Sometimes its obvious what I want or have to do, other times its takes repeated attempts slowly adjusting rhythms until it feels right.
Style and Mood: This is where getting a feel for the mood of a piece comes into play, also what style of music it is. If it’s straight ahead rock you are going to be playing some sort of moving bass line, if its funk a slap one etc. etc. Take as much time over playing through your ideas as you can here, recording them is a really good idea too. It is at this stage I also start to formulate ideas on timbre and tone i.e. What position on the fretboard and what octave will be suitable. However that’s down to personal taste and will vary from player to player.
Below is a run down on how I approached a ballad that was not written by me. The song and it’s structure had been formulated with no bass lines or drum parts.
Example One: As They Lay my Body Down
This is a ballad in the key of G minor and its all about the groove. If the rhythm section is not together it really effects the song and ruins the mood. It needs to be tight yet simple as the main locus of the song are the words. There is no space of histrionics.
I started with the above method and literally played through it with a backing track and then live at least a hundred times before I had the ideas cemented as to what I felt was good. Each section has a relaxing and a tightening up of the rhythms depending on what the vocals are doing. I have created pockets of space around the snare beat deliberately whilst catching the main bass drum rhythms in the verses – opting for a subtle use of staccato notes and tighter rhythms in the chorus. There are some idiosyncratic ear catching ideas that I have used to connect the sections: namely legato runs. The bass part flattens out rhythmically during the long guitar solo on the end and slowly starts adding back the syncopation and pulsating ideas building tension as the song approaches the ending.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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